A Survey of Medical Students’ Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Urmia, Iran

Personal beliefs of medical students may interfere with their tendency for learning Complementary and Alternative Medicine concepts. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge and attitudes of medical students toward complementary and alternative medicine in Urmia, Iran. A structured questionnair...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mahshid Sadeghi MD, Soheila Rabiepoor PhD, Aida Sefidani Forough PharmD, Shiva Jabbari MD, Shahram Shahabi MD
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2016-10-01
Series:Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/2156587215605751
Description
Summary:Personal beliefs of medical students may interfere with their tendency for learning Complementary and Alternative Medicine concepts. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge and attitudes of medical students toward complementary and alternative medicine in Urmia, Iran. A structured questionnaire was used as data collection instrument. One hundred questionnaires were returned. Thirty-one percent of students reported use of alternative medicine for at least once. Iranian Traditional Medicine was the main type of alternative medicine used by medical students (93.5%). Neuromuscular disorders were the main indication of alternative medicine use among students (34.4%). Ninety percent of participants demonstrated competent knowledge about acupuncture while the lowest scores belonged to homeopathy (12%). Study results showed that 49% of medical students had positive attitudes and demonstrated a willingness to receive training on the subject. Thus, there appears a necessity to integrate complementary and alternative medicine into the medical curriculum, by taking expectations and feedbacks of medical students into consideration.
ISSN:2156-5872
2156-5899